


Immersion

by xanzpet (gleefulmusings)



Series: Seconds [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:51:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/xanzpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She couldn't be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immersion

His arms silently screamed their protest, trembling with the effort he was exerting. His own breath had grown shallow, but only when he remembered to inhale. Sweat dripped off his forehead and into his eyes, stinging them, blending seamlessly with the tears which had gathered there. His shirt clung to his back; his pants, far too short, were riding up and digging into his skin, while the cold draft attacked his ankles with savage pricks.  
  
But he wouldn’t give up; he couldn’t. He hadn’t gone through all of this, hadn’t lost everything he had, just for something like this to happen.  
  
Why wouldn’t she wake up?  
  
He was sure he was doing it right. He had pulled her head back and listened for any inkling of respiration. He had pinched her nose and given her two of his own breaths, a duration of one second each. When there was no discernable effect, he had begun the chest compressions, pushing down approximately one and one-half to two inches between her breasts. He pumped at a rate of one hundred compressions per minute, and then added additional breaths.  
  
It was the one thing to which he had paid attention in health class, aside from the sex stuff. Given the way Willow inhaled jellybeans, he thought it prudent that he should know how to perform CPR. That, and the Heimlich maneuver, because you never knew.   
  
He was doing it right, wasn’t he?  
  
Oh, god, what if he wasn’t? What if he was making it worse? What if he was killing her? For all he knew, she could have been fine, healed herself, some Slayer thing. He didn’t know.   
  
Why wasn’t she waking up?  
  
He felt a gentle tug on his shoulder.  
  
“Xander.”  
  
He wasn't listening, _wouldn’t_ listen.  
  
“She’s gone, Xander.”  
  
A cloud of red descended over his vision as he mustered more force than he ever thought himself capable, sending Angel sprawling to the ground.

“Shut up! You don’t know _anything_.”

Stupid vampire.

All of this could have been avoided if Angel had gotten off his pathetic ass earlier, if Xander hadn’t been forced to seek out his creepy lair, wielding a crucifix like a broadsword. If Angel had just _done_ something, he wouldn’t be straddled over his best friend and trying to breathe for her.  
  
She wasn’t gone. No way. Not her, not Buffy. She was too strong, too alive. She was the Slayer. She couldn’t be…  
  
Dead.   
  
Buffy was dead.  
  
Oh god.

Oh god, oh god, oh god.  
  
And though acceptance began to assert itself even while he continued to thump her chest, though he had heard a rib crack, he couldn’t stop himself.  
  
What was he going to tell Giles? And Willow?  
  
Joyce.   
  
Oh god. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not after Jesse. Surely whatever governed this universe couldn’t be so cruel as to allow this, to force him to trudge to Buffy’s house and explain to her mother that her daughter was dead because he was too stupid to save her.  
  
“Don’t you die. Don’t you dare.”  
  
Why wouldn’t she just _breathe_?


End file.
